A coarse-grid projection method for accelerating incompressible MHD flow simulations

Abstract

Coarse grid projection (CGP) is a multiresolution technique for accelerating numerical calculations associated with a set of nonlinear evolutionary equations along with stiff Poisson’s equations. In this article, we use CGP for the first time to speed up incompressible magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) flow simulations. Accordingly, we solve the nonlinear advection–diffusion equation on a fine mesh, while we execute the electric potential Poisson equation on the corresponding coarsened mesh. Mapping operators connect two grids together. A pressure correction scheme is used to enforce the incompressibility constrain. The study of incompressible flow past a circular cylinder in the presence of Lorentz force is selected as a benchmark problem with a fixed Reynolds number but various Stuart numbers. We consider two different situations. First, we only apply CGP to the electric potential Poisson equation. Second, we apply CGP to the pressure Poisson equation as well. The maximum speed-up factors achieved here are approximately 3 and 23, respectively, for the first and second situations. For the both situations, we examine the accuracy of velocity and vorticity fields as well as the lift and drag coefficients. In general, the results obtained by CGP are in an excellent to reasonable range of accuracy. The CGP results are significantly more accurate compared to the numerical simulations of the advection–diffusion and electric potential Poisson equations on pure coarse scale grids.